Last week I made the Burnt Garlic Sesame and Chile Oil from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook. Like Umami Oil, this is from the Hot Dress Noodles section that is a sauce recipe with a note for serving it on noodles.

The Sauce

The recipes calls for nothing out of the ordinary for ingredients: oil, garlic, roasted sesame oil, Thai chiles, toasted sesame seeds, sugar, and salt.

To make the sauce, minced garlic is first simmered in oil until it “turns completely black.” This took me longer than the directed 10 minutes on low, but it did eventually get there. The oil, burnt garlic, and sesame oil are then blended until “pulverized.” This mixture is returned to the wok with the chiles and some fresh garlic, briefly fried, and then left to cool. Once cool ground sesame seeds are mixed in with salt and sugar.

The Noodles

For the noodles, Kenji calls for topping with soy sauce, the Burnt Garlic Sesame and Chile Oil, scallions, and “slivered cucumbers.” I don’t exactly know what “slivered cucumbers” means, and I couldn’t find an explanation from Kenji anywhere in the cookbook. I ended up peeling, seeding, halving, and slicing thinly. I wonder if I should’ve julienned them a la Thai green papaya salad. I used the same Chinese wheat noodles as the Noodles with Umami Oil, as I had enough left.

Other Uses

I also tried the oil in the broth of instant ramen (Kenji notes a particular ramen as the inspiration for this sauce) and with pork tenderloin and roasted vegetables.

Thoughts and Opinions

We were not fans of this one. We didn’t care for the sauce itself or the noodles. It was best in the instant ramen, but didn’t do anything for the pork or veggies. They made the sauce more palatable, the sauce didn’t improve them.

I don’t expect to make this one again.

I am cooking my way through J. Kenji Lopez-Alt’s The Wok cookbook. Read more about it.